Sydney Dolan

PhD Students

I am currently looking for two PhD students to start in 2027. If you are interested in working with me, please send me an email with your CV, transcript, and a short description of your interests. If you have written a bachelor’s or master’s thesis before, sending that along (alternatively, any key publications) would be appreciated. Applicants should generally meet the University of Sydney’s academic entry requirements, which correspond to a GPA of approximately 3.7/4.0 on the US scale (equivalent to a WAM above 75 in the Australian system). International qualifications will be considered in accordance with the University’s standard equivalency assessments.

Visiting Students: If you are an American student, there is also the Fulbright US Graduate Award! This scholarship supports an 8 month research stay in Australia to support your research. Feel free to reach out if you’re interested!

Bachelors Students + Postgraduate Students

University of Sydney Engineering Vacation Research Internship (VRI) Program (link) – I have 4 positions open with the VRI program this upcoming Summer (2026). VRI is an 8 week full time research internship over the December – February summer break. Apply on the above University of Sydney VRI webpage if you are interested.

  • Event-camera spin estimation for fault recovery and space observation – When a spacecraft loses its rate sensors or reaction wheels, recovering its angular rate is critical for detumbling and restoring control. The same technology can be used to observe other space objects, helping estimate the rotation of satellites, debris, and tumbling targets. The project will involve simulating star-field event streams under different spacecraft motions. Students will use image processing and state estimation techniques to estimate the spacecraft’s spin. Performance will be evaluated across a range of slew and tumble rates. The project provides practical experience in Python, computer vision, event-based sensing, optimisation, and spacecraft dynamics, with applications in fault recovery, detumbling, and space-object observation.
  • Far-range tumbling-target state estimation with two observing satellites – A known object tumbles in space while two distant satellites observe it with wide-angle cameras; combining those views is a notional way to recover pose and spin. The orbital setting is what makes this solvable in principle: known observer orbits and relative orbital dynamics provide changing multi-view geometry and let estimators separate orbital relative motion from the target’s rigid-body rates. From far away that estimation is still quite hard, because wide FOVs give little angular detail and the two observer streams must be associated in time and geometry. The student will generate Basilisk scenarios with a known tumbling target and two far-range observers, produce synthetic wide-view timelines with ground-truth pose and rates, and use this suite to compare different estimation algorithms in the same setting. This project provides experience in spacecraft simulation, and advanced estimation techniques.
  • Reinforcement learning for autonomous satellite task planning – This internship project focuses on reinforcement learning for satellite task planning. Classical planners precompute sequences that grow combinatorially; these approaches also cannot react onboard to faults, changing requests, or opportunistic targets. RL is attractive in this setting because the trained policy can adapt in real time. Using Basilisk and BSK-RL, the student will train an agent in a resource-constrained simulation and compare it with rule-based scheduling. This project provides hands-on experience in spacecraft simulation, Python, and reinforcement learning, with applications to autonomous mission operations.
  • Educational Rover Platform Development – This internship project focuses on improving the design of an educational rover used for classroom instruction. An initial rover has been developed, but a second iteration is needed to address areas where the current design and housing are cumbersome, as well as replace the ad-hoc wiring with a more integrated PCB solution. The project will also involve testing the rover in classroom environments to get initial feedback on its usability and suitability as an educational platform. This work is being undertaken in partnership with an educational organisation in Melbourne that works with technology schools to introduce students to foundational concepts in programming, space sciences, math, and physics.

University of Sydney Undergraduate Thesis/PG Thesis – I can supervise thesis students on topics related to my research. As a faculty member in the School of Aerospace Mechatronics and Mechanical Engineering, I can supervise students from my school at USyd. If you are interested in my work but in a different school, a co-advising situation with a faculty member from your school may be possible. If you are looking for a thesis supervisor, please reach out, and we can have a chat about suitable topics and whether we’re a good advising match.

University of Sydney Research Elective – AERO 2711/3711/4711 are courses for students in aerospace engineering to pursue research projects with faculty in the School of AMME. If you are interested in doing a 1-semester research project on a dedicated space topic, please reach out! This is a great way to space related research before your bachelor’s thesis, and to gain more experience on space related problems in an academic setting.

Some other incredible opportunities to get space-related experience:
  • [NSW] Sydney Interplanetary Rover Initaitive (SIRI) – A group of University of Sydney students that are building a rover to compete in teh Australian Rover Challenge.
  • [NSW] USyd Rocket Team (link) – This is a university-based rocket team. One of their primary efforts is to design a rocket to to fly to 10,000 ft in the developed hyrbid/liquid motor cateogry of the International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC).
  • [NSW] BlueSat UNSW (link)- This is a UNSW sydney based team that develops high-altitude balloon platforms, rovers, and a cubesats
  • Australian Rover Challenge (link) – this is an annual robotics competition hosted by Adelaid University. University teams are challenged to build semi-autonomous rovers that must complete a range of tasks representative of what rovers do on Mars including navigation, construction, and collection.
  • Australian Space Architecture Competition (link) – This competition focuses on developing deep space human habitation concepts that reflect the interdisciplinary nature of space architecture. This is a competition open to students, graduates and professionals.
  • Space Generation Advisory Council (link) – this is a nonprofit international oganization that represents students and young profeessionals in the space industry ages 18 to 35. They organize research events, offer scholarships, professional mentorship, and even do research.
  • Mars Society Australia (link) – This is a non-profit organization whose goals are to do broad public outreach about Mars, and to perform resarch and support technological efforts that lead to Mars exploration programs. MSA does comparative research and testing surface exploration strategies to Mars locations.
  • National Indigenous Space Academy (link) – This is a specialized program for First Nations STEM students across Australia to intern at leading space facilities. For the 2026 class, students interned at NASA JPL and at Rutherford Appleton Lab (RAL) in the UK.
  • Ascleipos (link) – A Swiss analog astronaut mission facility, candidates can be Australian citizens, but they do need to be in an active degree program. (And yes, they have chosen Australians before!) Astronaut candidate classes are generally recruited roughly once a year. Applications for this year open December 1st and close December 31st.
  • CalTech Space Challenge (link) – this is for postgraduate students only. CalTech brings 32 students to their campus in the USA to complete a week-long space mission design competition. Participants work under the mentorship of industry, NASA, and academia to design their mission concepts.
  • Space Station Design Workshop (link) – Participants design a space station within one week. This is open to students and young professionals, people come from all over the world ( USA, Germany etc) to attend the workshop if selected.
  • Hypatia Mars (link) – This is a women-led organization dedicated to advancing space research and outreach. They partner with local and global institutions to advance multidisciplinary space research, and they also do lots of outreach intiatives to raise awareness about different types of work done in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, math)

K-12 Students

NASA Space Apps Challenge (link) – I am one of the coordinators for the Sydney branch of the NASA Space App Challenge, a large annual global hackathon. During the two-day hackathon, participants gather at hundreds of in-person and virtual Local events to respond to challenges authored by NASA subject matter experts. Participants utilize NASA’s free and open data and its Space Agency Parterns’ space-data to address real-world problems on Earth and in Space.

This year (2026), the challenge will be occuring November 14th and 15th. Team formation opens on September 17th. With a parental guardian present, the space challenge is open to high school (year 9-12) students. You must have your parent or legal guardian register you as well.

One Giant Leap Australia (link) – An Australian organisation focused on inspiring and educating young people through hands-on STEM and space activities. They connect students with space technology, engineering, and exploration through workshops, educational programs, and practical projects designed to build STEM skills and encourage future careers in the space industry. One Giant Leap Australia delivers programs such as the Kibo Robot Programming Challenge, where students develop programs for robots operating in a simulated International Space Station environment. They have a lot of programs to offer, check their website to see what is age appropriate + happening in your area!

Robinson Aerospace Systems (link) – Robinson Aerospace creates educational satellite kits to teach kids about important STEM concepts (space-related and not). They also work to reduce the teaching workload around teaching space-related STEM concepts, providing both the teaching tools and the lesson plans for teachers to use. Their work is an incredible resource for learning about CubeSats; they also occasionally partner with launch companies to send student projects to orbit (and did so in June 2025!)